The Enemy At Home Read Online Free PDF

new moral code. My point is not that liberals would approve of all the grossness and sensuality of contemporary popular culture, but that the liberal promotion of autonomy, individuality, and self-fulfillment as moral ideals make it impossible to question or criticize or place limits on these cultural trends. In the moral code of self-fulfillment, “pushing the envelope,” or testing the borders of sexual and moral tolerance, becomes a virtue, and fighting for traditional morality becomes a form of repression or vice.
    To American liberals, the great social revolution of the past few decades—with its 1.5 million abortions a year, with one in two marriages ending in divorce, with homosexuality coming out of the closet and now seeking full social recognition and approval—is viewed through the prism of an expansion of civil liberties, “freedom of choice,” and personal autonomy. Thus it is seen as a moral achievement. But viewed from the perspective of people in the traditional societies of the world, notably the Muslim world, these same trends appear nothing less than the shameless promotion of depravity. So it is not surprising to see pious Muslims react with horror at the prospect of this new American morality seeping into their part of the world. They fear that this new morality will destroy their religion and way of life—and they are quite right!
    Osama bin Laden chose his words carefully when he said that 9/11 was an attempt to scorch “the head of the snake.” In the view of the Islamic radicals, America is the embodiment of pagan depravity. According to bin Laden, this is why religious Muslims must stop fighting local battles and concentrate on destroying Satan’s empire on earth. This is seen as nothing less than a divine mission. In bin Laden’s words, 9/11 showed “America struck by Almighty God in its vital organs.” 18 For the Islamic radicals, 9/11 was a message to America that said: Your America is a repulsive sewer. This sewer is now pouring itself into the rest of the world. We will fight to the death to keep it out of our part of the globe. In fact, we will fight in any way we can until every vestige of your sick, demented culture is eradicated from the holy ground of Islam. We may be poor and oppressed, but we would rather be poor and oppressed than become the immoral, perverted society that America has become. So get the hell out of the Middle East, because you represent the values of the Devil.
             
    THUS WE HAVE the first way in which the cultural left is responsible for 9/11. The left has produced a moral shift in American society that has resulted in a deluge of gross depravity and immorality. This deluge threatens to engulf our society and is imposing itself on the rest of the globe. The Islamic radicals are now convinced that America represents the revival of pagan barbarism in the world, and 9/11 represents their ongoing battle with what they perceive to be the forces of Satan.
    I have focused so far on American cultural depravity and its global impact. But there is a second way in which the cultural left has helped to produce 9/11. In the domain of foreign policy, the left has helped to produce the conditions that led to the destruction of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. First, under Jimmy Carter, the liberals helped to get rid of the shah and to install the Khomeini regime in Iran. The pretext was the shah’s human rights failings, but the result was the abdication of the shah and the triumph of Khomeini. The Khomeini revolution, which has proved the viability of Islamic theocracy in the modern age, was the match that lit the conflagration of radicalism and fundamentalism throughout the Muslim world. It is Khomeini’s success that paved the road to 9/11.
    During the Clinton administration, liberal foreign policy conveyed to bin Laden and his coconspirators a strong impression of American vacillation, weakness, and even cowardice. When Al Qaeda attacked and